Watertown, South Dakota.
Typical home $311,434 (+4.6% in a year), asking rent $1,196 . Watertown, SD metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$839 (+105%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,689 +5%
- $297,745$311,434 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $55,651 +22%
- $255,783$311,434 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Watertown$1,635
- South Dakota$1,668
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Watertown, SD rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Watertown, Codington County, South Dakota
Watertown is a city of 22,655 people in Codington County. Half its households earn more than $69,600 a year and half less, against $72,727 across Codington County; 9% of its people live below the poverty line. 65% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 35% are rented. Unemployment in Codington County was 1.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Watertown is a small city in Codington County, South Dakota, where most homes are lived in by their owners and a typical household earns a little less than across the county. Residents are around the middle in age, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm in July without being extreme.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Terex - Watertown, the Watertown School District and Prairie Lakes Health Care Center are among the largest workplaces in town. Unemployment across the county is low, and the trip to work is short for most people.
Things to do. Bramble Park Zoo and Watertown Stadium are both in or beside town. Lake Kampeska is a short drive away for time on the water, and the Redlin Art Center, a museum, is also a short drive away.
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- 10,394households
- 22%of adults have a degree
- 9%below the poverty line
- 13 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Codington County had 17,187 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 21° and lows near 3°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 60°. About 41 inches of snow and 23 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Watertown Regional Airport weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Watertown
- Terex - WatertownAerial work platforms manufacturing730
- Watertown School District 14-4School district581FTE
- Prairie Lakes Health Care CenterGeneral hospital563FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters357
- Hy-VeeSupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores255
- Dakota Bodies WatertownTruck bodies and cabs manufacturing246
- Lake Area Technical CollegeTwo-year college240
- Wurth Electronics MidcomTransformers, electronic component-types, manufacturing232
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 32 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,606 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Ice stormsVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Watertown’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Codington County and the Watertown, SD metro.
Watertown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Watertown$311,434
- South Dakota$317,874
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Watertown listings, and the typical home goes pending in 41 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Watertown26.23%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Watertown41
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Watertown134
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Watertown34
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Watertown$288,978
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Watertown97.59%
Zip codes with a Watertown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Watertown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.